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Book Review: “Muslim Women in America”

Not my review, and the only reason I highlight this review is because the reviewer gets it: The authors admit that their book “concentrates primarily on Muslim women who are actively affirming Islam.” Skeptics, doubters and agnostics are scarcely acknowledged (Irshad Manji, the controversial author of the important work The Trouble With Islam, is disposed of in a paragraph). The book’s unstated focus is Sunni Islam and the (African-American) Nation of Islam. Little attention is paid to women’s experiences in Ahmadiyyah, Ismaili Shia or Twelver Shia communities—all of which are thriving in the United States. (The Islamic scholar Linda Walbridge’s…

NYT on Turkey’s New Riches

Newfound Riches Come With Spiritual Costs for Turkey’s Religious Merchants – NYTimes.com. There are some choice examples in this article of the rich religious. My favorite is the sofa that lifts up off of the ground during prayer time. I wonder how far they had to dig to find people who saw a strong dichotomy between being wealthy and being religious. I think this quote "The businessmen describe themselves as Muslims with a Protestant work ethic, and say hard work deepens faith," is rather telling. How many Turks are thinking of the Protestant work ethic? The class differentials in Turkish society seem to be the real story. The conflict between the material and the spiritual world seems to be a reach that they shoe-horned into the article.